Vin Venal

Good tips, thanks. Hadn't thought of a compressor. At the moment, I just use the comp on my amp, but that'll sit after the loop. I'll see how it all sounds, and then see if I need a separate one in the clean loop.

Sounds awesome! I've thought about adding an octave up to do the bass/rhythm guitar combined thing. Would be kind of a half arsed version compared to what you've got going on there though.

Weird how everyone's ears are different, cuz to me, compression is a key component of the distinctive tubey sound we were just talking about. They call it tube sag, but I think its the same thing, that feeling of give in the attack you get with compression.

Thats an interesting one. I personally prefer the sound of vinyl, but I don't think it's better, I think that's subjective. I also think comparing vinyl to digital as if that's one monolithic group is a trap a lot of analogophiles fall into, certainly I've been guilty of it, when in reality digital formats vary enormously. And, this is only a suspicion I hold, but I reckon if people really wanted to, it would be possible to digitally emulate that vinyl quality accurately enough to fool the human ear.

It's a myth that old stuff sounds better. Whether that's items which were actually made a long time ago, or new stuff made with obsolete tech, like tube amps. I think the reason people think this is because with a lot of such gear, you can just plug it in, and it will sound good, but with modern gear, the same sounds are there, you just have more options. Eg - old instruments which sound super warm and organic - that's because a load of high frequencies are being attenuated, you could get the same results with a modern sounding bright instrument and a good enough EQ. Tube amps - whatever magic is in there is emulatable, and not even just digitally, which is cheating. I'm confident that given a good enough ear, and judicious use of the right effects (mostly compression, distortion and EQ) and you could get that sound from any nasty sounding solid state amp. The flat, dead sound of a modern class d amp when it's first plugged in is just because it doesn't already have a load of frequencies sucked out in a characterful way - it's up to you to shape the sound.

About to start down this dark path. Got an LS-2, a rat and a cheap beringer EQ on the way. Plan is to run a little loop of guitar drive/distortion/fuzz, blended with my clean signal run through the beringer with most of the high end rolled off. Basically my favourite pedals are all guitar pedals, especially overdrives, so this was bound to happen. Just wondering what other people are doing regards to signal splitting. Show me/describe to me your rigs! How do you split/recombine your signal? If you similarly EQ or LPF your clean signal for the blend, where do you find its best to cut the frequencies? What do you find is the optimal % to blend in cleans?

I believe that's a common problem for rats of that era. Something to do with the paint they were using. Personally I think it looks very cool. I'd definitely have it in my board. Unfortunately, the hype around certain 'variants' of the rat, often with identical circuits, like these 'whiteface' ones means these sell for silly prices, as indicated above. To me personally, it's worth about 70 quid, because any more than that and I'd rather get the new Chinese one, which sounds pretty much the same anyway.

Some shorter mini pedals are better mounted sideways I've found, as you can often fit two into less space that way.

Oh cool, now my amp and cab are "pre-korg" and therefore clearly more valuable. 😅

It wasn't until the 60s that Jazz necks showed up full stop. The Jazz bass only existed from 1960 on.

My thinking on this is that, for reasons I don't understand, and possibly for reasons nobody understands, the wooden parts of electric guitars seem to be able to influence the sound to a limited degree. But they don't seem to be able to do so consistently. Like, I've seen nothing to convince me there is a predictable and consistent sound you can expect from an Ash vs a Mahogany body for instance. In fact, I think two pieces of Ash could potentially be more different from each other than the Ash from the Mahogany. There are literally identical P-basses sitting next to each other on walls in shops now made of the same stuff, where one weighs about 7lbs, and the other weighs closer to 12lbs. If wood can vary that much in density, and we know it can differ greatly in texture from observable grain differences, how can it have the same effect on sound? I think electronics have a much greater, and more consistent influence on sound, so if you want to change your tone, amps, pedals, pickups, loom, that's where you should invest your money. There you actually can be like - I want a more girthy sound, so I will get some SD quarter pounders, for instance, and it will work. I think of the elements of how a bass feels and sounds which are derived from the actual structure of the bass as a kind of magical mystery, where you just have to find a good-un by luck, or by trying a lot.

Don't see her get talked about much on here, and think she's a really interesting player. She does subtle but melodically and rhythmically interesting stuff. Kind of flowy and atmospheric, but also loads of groove. Quite influential on me, made me fall in love with chorus and delay on bass (I know hundreds of people have played bass with chorus and delay, hooky most notably, but I like how she uses em).

Just out of curiosity, because I'm interested in what people think of as the origin of punk rock, where are you counting from? Because by my reckoning 35 years pre green day puts you before even the proto-punk bands of 69ish like the stooges and mc5. In reality, about twice as much time has passed between green day and now as had passed between the beginning of punk, and green day. Or in other words, green day are much closer to the origins of punk than they are to the present scene.

OK cool, sounds like a compressor up front with a reasonably low threshold and ratio might smooth things out. My problem with compression is it got in the way of the interaction between my pick and overdrive, and I never really play clean. Also my compressor had like 4 knobs, which is too many for a bassist to handle imo 😅. A one knob job after the drive is right for me, as even though I don't use them the way many bassists do, a little bit of compression makes your tone sound more massive and dramatic imo.

I think compressors don't just do one thing, they do all different things depending on how you set them up, where you run them in your signal path, and how that interacts with your playing style. More than any other type of pedal, I think there's technique involved in using compression, so getting one might not immediately solve your problem until you've figured out what works for you. Are you a finger style player, or a pick player? Do you use a lot of overdrive, or play clean? What other effects are you using?

The Ibanez mini pedals are all made in Japan (except the mini tuner for some reason). Those cheap mini pedals are all made in China I reckon. If you've handled the ibanez pedals, they feel like decent quality. They're half the size of other pedals, but weigh more. The housing, footswitch and big knob all feel very robust. Obviously the two mini knobs feel a bit more delicate, which is a limitation of the design which they no doubt share. I don't know enough to comment on the circuits, but I'd also bet they are different, because they're all based on classic ibanez pedals from the 80s, and lots of people have said they sound almost identical to the pedals they're referencing. Even to the point where, in the case of the super metal, it suffers the same noise problems as the original. At the moment I have the analogue delay, the chorus, and the fuzz. The fuzz is unique, and even though you can tell its based on a big muff, it definitely takes some finessing to get sounds that work on bass, but I like the sounds that do. The delay and the chorus are just great bass pedals I'd have no problem recommending to anyone. I intend to try the phaser, the flanger, and maybe even the tube screamer and the boost (which can be used as a mini eq), and will let you know if/when I do. 🙂

Didn't it used to be called an A Width neck, and be available on request from the factory? Not that I'm suggesting it is now. However, the Maruszczyk Jake is worth looking at - you can order them with a 38mm or 40mm neck, and they come up new and used with either every now and then.

The footswitch is where my amp, with its built in overdrive circuits (darkglass VMT or B7K - I usually use the former) sits in the signal path. The Ampeg pre and the chorus/delay are in the FX loop.

The ones I've got - the CSMINI and ADMINI are great bass pedals, affordable, made in Japan, true bypass, really well built, and small. Plus funky colours - what's not to love? Based on the iconic CS9 and AD9 chorus and delay respectively, can't say I've played the originals, but they sound good to me. I'm thinking about getting the FZMINI - it's based on the old OD850, which was a big muff clone. So a cool tiny orange big muff - surprised more people aren't on that. Anyone know if any of the others work well on bass (without excessive finagling, like signal splitting)? Bet the phaser would work. What about the SMMINI - anyone used the big Super Metal on bass? Is it usable with the EQ? I think the mini retains the EQ section. Worth a punt? Honestly tempted to get them all and build a cool multi-coloured mini-board. 😁

The most progressive bass I've ever owned was one of these fan fretted headless ibanez jobs. It was definitely the most comfortable, practical instrument I've played. But I still sold it and bought a Precision, cuz at the end of the day, most of us want our guitars to look like they're from the middle of the 20th century, and this aesthetic concern overrides most practical ones. Maybe in 50 years or so, when people are nostalgic about the good old days of early 21st century prog djent tech metal, these will finally replace conventionally fretted instruments, but by that time, more progressively minded bassists will be playing instruments made of dark matter, and listening to inter-dimensional gothic dubstep or whatever.

How do you get a Precision neck on a neck through body?

I dunno why so many people think this is a bad thing. Like, if you just wanna be a simp for a multinational, you do you, but the bottom line is, a silly little youtuber just got thousands of people a free hundred dollars worth of stuff, and hopefully made manufacturers think twice before chucking single coils in humbucker covers to save costs in future. Buying guitars is already a minefield for consumers really, with an astonishing lack of transparency about any number of things, like where stuff is made, by who, out of what etc, and the big names get away with insane margins on mass produced stuff of questionable quality, because of a name on a headstock. 90% of consumer targeted content about guitars is purely advertising, including on YouTube, where the vast majority of reviews and demos are little more than paid marketing. This probably wouldn't ever have come to light if it weren't for Lobster, and the unique position he's in of being able to review large numbers of basses without taking anyone's money, as evidenced by the fact that it'd been going on for years without anyone noticing, and dozens of other magazines, youtube channels, blogs etc had "reviewed" the bass and said nothing. The less businesses can get away with lying to consumers, the better for us. Seems self evident really.

Now I wish I'd bought one of these before this kicked off. I'd have a cool short scale, plus $100 worth of free stuff.